Post on 29-Sep-2020
Unlocking scholarly communication:what is this thing
called Open Access?
Alma SwanKey Perspectives Ltd
Truro, UK
FEST, Trieste, Italy, May14-18 2007
Open Access: What is it?
� Online� Immediate� Free (non-restricted)� Free (gratis)� To the scholarly literature that authors
give away� Permanent
Key Perspectives Ltd
‘Old’ paradigms
� Use of proxy measures of an individual scientist’s merit is as good as it gets
� It is a journal’s responsibility to disseminate your work
� Printed article is the format of record� Other scientists have time to search out
what you want them to know
Key Perspectives Ltd
‘New’ paradigms
� Rich, deep, broad metrics for measuring the contributions of individual scientists
� Effective dissemination of your work is now in your hands (at last)
� The digital format will be the format of record (is already in many areas)
� Unless you routinely publish in Nature or Science, ‘getting it out there’ is up to you
Key Perspectives Ltd
Open Access: Why should we have it?
� Benefits to researchers themselves� Benefits to institutions� Benefits to national economies� Benefits to science and society
Key Perspectives Ltd
Why we should have Open Access
� Greater impact from scientific endeavour� More rapid and more efficient progress of
science� Better assessment, better monitoring,
better management of science� Novel information-creation using new and
advanced technologies
Key Perspectives Ltd
Why researchers publish their work
0 20 40 60 80 100
% respondents
Communicate results to peers
Advance career
Personal prestige
Gain funding
Financial reward
Key Perspectives Ltd
Open Access increases citations
0 50 100 150 200 250
% increase in citations with Open Access
BiologyEconomics
Political SciHealth SciBusiness
EducationManagement
LawPsychology
SociologyPhysics
Key Perspectives Ltd
Range = 50%-200%(Data: Stevan Harnad and co-workers)
Lost citations, lost impact
� Only around 15% of research is Open Access….
� ….. so 85% is not� ….. and we are therefore losing 85% of
the 50% increase in citations (conservative end of the range) that Open Access brings (= 42.5%)
Key Perspectives Ltd
The Italian economy
� Italian scientists: 52,086 articles in 2006� Number of citations: circa 312,500� If all had been OA, there would have been
(42.5% more) 445312 citations� Since the Italian Government invested
circa €4.25 bn in S&T in 2006 …..� This means lost impact worth €1.8 bn to
the Italian economy
Key Perspectives Ltd
Sacrificed impact
0 200000 400000 600000
Articles2006
Citations2006
Potentialcitations
2006
'Sacrificed'citations
0 2 4 6 8
Italian Govtspending on
S&T 2006
Value of'sacrificed'citations
Value ofpotentialimpact
€ billions
Key Perspectives Ltd
University of Trieste
� Articles published 2002-6 (5 years): 4,254� Number of citations: 25,848� If all had been OA, there would have been
(42.5% more) 36,883 citations� Say the University of Trieste invested
€50m in S&T in 2005 …..� This means lost impact worth €21.25m to
the University
Key Perspectives Ltd
The USouthamptonconundrum…
Key Perspectives Ltd
Why is Southampton so strong?
� Strong research base� TBL et al� Mandatory deposit of research output in
ECS repository for 4 years (c11K items)� University repository actively managed
and now to have mandatory deposit� All = Strong web presence
Key Perspectives Ltd
Science is faster, more efficientTime taken to be cited for articles in the arXiv database
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
10000
-6 3 12 21 30 39 48 57 66 75 84 93
Months from publication
Nu
mb
er o
f ar
ticl
es 1991199319951997199920012003
Key Perspectives Ltd
Measure, assess, and manage science more effectively
� Assess individuals, groups, institutions, on the basis of citation analysis
� Manage, assess scientific programmes to the benefit of our societies
Key Perspectives Ltd
Navigation and analysis of science output: Citebase
� Find researchers� Measure citations to articles (not journals)� Follow the citations through the literature� Measure downloads (and predict
citations)� Use citation patterns to analyse science
Key Perspectives Ltd
Find a researcher …..
Key Perspectives Ltd
Follow the citing trail …
Key Perspectives Ltd
Follow the citing trail …
Key Perspectives Ltd
This article’s citation / hits / history
� Citations� Downloads� References� Cited by� Co-cited
Key Perspectives Ltd
Track citation history
Key Perspectives Ltd
Measure, assess, and manage science more effectively
� Assess individuals, groups, institutions, on the basis of citation analysis
� Track trends: growth, latency, longevity� Identify hubs and authorities� Identify silent, ‘unsung’ contributors� Predict impact, directions� Manage, assess scientific programmes to
the benefit of our societies
Key Perspectives Ltd
New machine technologies
� Text-mining, data-mining� New information creation from otherwise
disparate information sources� Example: Neurocommons � (Find this on the ScienceCommons
website: www.sciencecommons.org)
Key Perspectives Ltd
New knowledge from old
� Text-mining and data-mining technologies
� UK: National Text-Mining Centre� The Grid / e-research /
cyberresearch� Need a single research space� Example: NeuroCommons
Key Perspectives Ltd
What is a repository?
Key Perspectives Ltd
Key Perspectives Ltd
An institutional repository provides researchers with:
� Secure storage (for completed work and for work-in-progress)
� A location for supporting data that are unpublished
� One-input-many outputs (CVs, publications)
� RAE
Key Perspectives Ltd
“Self-archiving in the PhilSci Archive has given instant world-wide visibility to my work. As a result, I was invited to submit papers to refereed international conferences/journals and got them accepted.”
Key Perspectives Ltd
An author’s own testimony on open access visibility
Repositories: interoperable
� Show their content in a specific form� Harvested by search engines� Form a database of global research� Freely available� Publicly available� Permanently available
Key Perspectives Ltd
Open Access repositories
� circa 950 worldwide� 28 in Italy � Open source software (e.g.
EPrints from Southampton University)
Key Perspectives Ltd
Publisher permissions (by journal)
79%
13%
8%
'Green' (postprints) 'Pale green' (preprints) 'Grey' (neither yet)
Key Perspectives Ltd
Publisher permissions
� 92% of journals permit self-archiving
� SHERPA/RoMEO list at:www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
� Or at: http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php
Key Perspectives Ltd
Author readiness to comply with a mandate
0 20 40 60 80 100
% respondents
Would complywillingly
Would complyreluctantly
Would notcomply
81%
14%
5%
Key Perspectives Ltd
Developments on mandating
� Wellcome Trust� NIH� RCUK� CURES Act (USA)� FRPAA (USA)� National Institute of Technology, India� Universities in UK and Australia
Key Perspectives Ltd
Why we should have Open Access
� Greater impact from scientific endeavour� More rapid and more efficient progress of
science� Better assessment, better monitoring,
better management of science� Novel information-creation using new and
advanced technologies
Key Perspectives Ltd
“Self-archiving in the PhilSci Archive has given instant world-wide visibility to my work. As a result, I was invited to submit papers to refereed international conferences/journals and got them accepted.”
Key Perspectives Ltd
An author’s own testimony on open access visibility
Thank you for listening
aswan@keyperspectives.co.uk
www.keyperspectives.co.uk
Key Perspectives Ltd
What about quality control when people can make their work available in repositories?
Key Perspectives Ltd
Quality control
I don’t think I can do what you’re saying. The publisher won’t let me. I have signed copyright over to the publisher.
Key Perspectives Ltd
Copyright
Publisher permissions (by journal)
79%
13%
8%
'Green' (postprints) 'Pale green' (preprints) 'Grey' (neither yet)
Key Perspectives Ltd
Publisher permissions
� 92% of journals permit self-archiving
� SHERPA/RoMEO list at:www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
� Or at: http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php
Key Perspectives Ltd
What about my society? It makes its money from its journals.
Key Perspectives Ltd
Learned societies
How long does it take to self-archive an article?
Key Perspectives Ltd
Time …
Where do I put my articles, then? And how difficult is it?
Key Perspectives Ltd
… and effort
What should I self-archive?
Key Perspectives Ltd
What should be OA?
What about plagiarism? It will be easy for other people to steal my work.
Key Perspectives Ltd
My work is mine
I don’t think anyone has a problem getting hold of articles they want, anyway. We have access to everything we need.
Key Perspectives Ltd
I have everything I need (I think)
How do people find my articles when I’ve self-archived them? How do I find articles in repositories?
Key Perspectives Ltd
Finding and navigating
What about articles in repositories? How do I know they are the final versions? Sometimes there are several versions. How do I make sense of all that confusion?
Key Perspectives Ltd
Versions
The published version has all the extra things publishers do – like linking references.Isn’t the repository version a bit basic?
Key Perspectives Ltd
Added functionality
Remind me again: Why should I provide open access to my work?
Key Perspectives Ltd
What were the reasons?